Clinical Background

Hantavirus causes hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) and was first reported in the Americas. Hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS) was first reported in Asia and Europe in 1993.

Epidemiology

Incidence – <50 cases annually in U.S.

Sex – M>F

Transmission – inhalation of infected aerosols from rodents

Organism

Hantavirus is the only member of the Bunyaviridae family not arthropod-transmitted

Enveloped virus with tri-segmented, negative-stranded RNA

Sin Nombre, Bayou, Black Creek Canal, Muleshoe, Monongahela, and New York strains of hantavirus, as well as their sigmodontinae rodent reservoirs, have been identified as definitive causes of HPS in the U.S. and Central and South America